Raising Your Hand

Raising Your Hand

 

If you are a veteran student, raising your hand up may prove to be difficult. Being a non-traditional student, you are likely to be years beyond the days when your classroom was not in the hands of another person in uniform. Although you may have ideas and comments lingering your head, you may be too shy to share them. But, being a veteran who has returned to the classroom, you need to raise your hand.

In military and high school classes, teachers talk while students listen. However, university and college courses involve more discussions and fewer lectures. Students are inevitably required to take part in the discussion if they are to get the optimum results out of class.

Veteran students have what it takes to add to these discussions. Having experienced life events that college students and professors have never encountered, veteran students can use their military experience to bring new ideas that other college students can benefit from. Coupled with sharing their ideas, veteran students should also listen to what the young college students have to share. Higher education is all about sharing knowledge.

It is not always the students who raise their hands that have answers. Usually, students raise their hands for purposes of seeking help. As older members of the class, veterans may shy away from asking questions in a bid to avoid sounding stupid. If you have studied enough, you still wish to ask and you had been paying attention, you are not likely to be the only one who is lost. Being weak and raising your hand to ask a question or clarify something are two different things. Rather, asking a question or raising your hand for purposes of clarifying something is a sign of maturity. Most likely, you will also be helping other students.

The last thing that can help veterans is to seek help outside the classroom. Being non-traditional students, most veterans reside outside campus and may not linger around after classes are over. They may also feel indifferent about asking for help from a young tutor.

But, it is important to your grades, your career success, and your education and future academics that you seek help as often as is necessary. All students can do well to frequent their school library. Apart from being a great place to study from, the library is also home to numerous means of academic help such as writing centers, computer labs and research librarians.

Veteran students can do well to make frequent visits to the school’s Veteran Resource Centre. A good number of schools provide private study and convening space to veterans. Many of these offices already offer services such as tutoring and workshops dedicated to veterans. Suppose your school is not home to a veteran resource center, does not have these services or an affairs office for veterans, you can do well to ask why. Taking such a step may be a way of assisting another person who has been too to ask the same question.

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